A Bit About Me

Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

21 October 2006

A Very Strange Election aka Swann's Song

I was watching the news tonight and they had a story about how the race for Lt. Governor here in Alabama was now embroiled in controversy. It seems Republican Luther Strange's election campaign ad being shown on television mocking Democrat Jim Folsom, Jr., was undoubtedly a complete and utter rip-off of another one which is simultaneously airing...in Pennsylvania, for gubernatorial candidate, Lynn Swann (R). The ads depict both Folsom's and Ed Rendell's (Swann's opponent) careers throughout the last three decades (portrayed by an actor prancing around in disco duds, jogging suit, and Miami Vice-alike attire) and alleges such things as Folsom putting his family and cronies on the state payroll and Rendell never owning up to his "reform" promises.

Just some comments here that I'd like to make, altho I'm not at all usually political by nature...

It's an AD...get over it...it's not the first time someone is going to steal, borrow, or otherwise engage in a form of this...dare I say "plagiarism"...period. It happens in television...heaven knows if only one person could have kept the idea of a "reality show" to themselves, we wouldn't be in the predicament we are nowadays. How many times is the "two buddies and a girl" situation comedy going to happen? How about a "life at home" scenario? Or one about writers who work on a comedy show? Ooops...sorry, we can't do that, they had "The Dick Van Dyke Show" years ago. "Lost"? Sounds too much like "'Gilligan's Island' revamped for the 00's" to me. Something with a lawyer? Sorry...no can do. Forget doing anything CSI-ish as there was a show on The Discovery Channel called "The New Detectives: Case Studies in Forensic Science". Oh, but you say that one was real? How about that show back in the 70s with Jack Klugman modeled after real-life Medical Examiner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. Oh...wait...do we see a pattern here? Most ideas are rehashed...political commercials are no exception. Granted it is an awfully irritating ad to watch...and it's pretty much the same as the Lynn Swann one...but if the first person to do political mud-slinging ads had the patent on it...well, we wouldn't be talking about this right now...and no one else would be either.

Oversight or brilliant campaign strategy? Now from what I've gathered, the same Washington, DC firm to do the Folsom ad was also the one behind the Swann ad. Either they really put one over on both candidates or this is some form of genius. Face it...what sticks better in the minds of the collective consciousness than controversy? Is this really going to plague the Strange campaign? The most you can determine from all of this is that their spin doctors are now engaged in counter-control and they were stupid in not determining that this ad was already out there in some shape or form. Did Strange know about it? Well, he's a politician...he'll answer that by avoiding it...and why even BOTHER to answer it? Does this have any bearing on the platform he's running on? Let's see...it's going to be like those Teen Beat magazines..."Uh, Mr. Strange...what colour do you like best? What did you eat for dinner last night? What do you look for in a girl (oh, wait...that's a question for Clinton...ba-da-bing)...Did you purposely know that there was a gubernatorial candidate/ex-football player running the same annoying disco ad as you? And, by the way, what's your fav disco song?"

So, I say this really is a reality show of its own...and further testament to the dumbing-down of our society as a whole. Do we really want to base our political decisions...waste our precious votes...and further degrade ourselves in the process by letting THIS "issue" be a militating factor this time around...and then surely in the future?

DISCO?? Listen, this country is in enough trouble as it is. The LAST thing we need is a couple of frootloops running for office just so they can wind up as a pair on "Disco Dancing with the Stars!" Subliminal advertising doesn't get by all of us, ya know!